Month: November 2012

I know a few of you were at our presentation at Astricon and may have gotten a taste of some great features coming up in 2.11. For the rest of you, I’ll outline what the plan is and tell you how you can easily get a copy to help get the testing momentum started! We’ve already blogged about some 2.11 features such as some [url=/news/2012-10-02/more-routing-and-trunking-enhancements-in-2-11]enhancements to Outbound Routes and Trunks[/url] and the [url=/news/2012-09-20/freepbx-extension-routing-module]Extension Routing Module[/url] which was part of the 2.11 effort but we made available in the 2.10 branch given much demand!

[b]2.11 Release Plan[/b]

The development team has decided to go through a Beta 1 and Beta 2 release cycle for 2.11. Today we are announcing the availability of the FreePBX Beta1 release. The easiest way to get access is to [url=http://www.schmoozecom.com/distro-download.php]Download the Beta Distro 1.1100.211.63[/url] which includes the latest Asterisk 11, Centos 6.3 and FreePBX 2.11. You can then configure a new 2.11 system. More general Distro information can be found [url=/freepbx-distro]on the Distro page[/url]

Details are also available on the previous link to upgrade the current beta release of the FreePBX Distro, or you can get [url=/download-freepbx]FreePBX tarball download information here[/url] or [url=/support/documentation/installation/upgrading-your-system]upgrade instructions here.[/url] While all of you help us test beta 1 and provide evaluable feedback, there are some additional features we plan on working on for beta2 and we will also be going through the tickets to make sure there are no oversights on important features that have been requested and could be reasonably added now.

[b]Beta 1 High Level Summary[/b]

A few of the features included in this Beta 1 release are:
[list]
[*] Asterisk 11 Support
[*] [b]Destination popOvers (SEE BELOW)[/b]
[*] Module Admin Security Auditing capability
[*] Outbound Route and Trunk enhancements
[*] Extension Routing Module
[*] Hotel Wakeup Call Module
[*] Chan Motif Module (google voice enabler)
[*] CallerID Superfecta Module
[/list]
This list is by no means inclusive. A side note on the modules, you will notice that some of these have been around for some time in various states. The fact that we are including them in the release means that the FreePBX team has taken on the support of these and they will also be downloadable and upgradable from the online repository.

[b]Today’s Highlight: Destination popOvers[/b]

How many times have you gone to configure an IVR, Inbound Route, or other module, and when you go to choose your Destination [float=left][/float]you realize you haven’t created it yet? e.g. [i]”I want option 1 of the IVR to go to the Sales Ring Group, which, oops, I haven’t created yet!”[/i] This has been a long lasting frustration in FreePBX which has finally been addressed! When we released 2.10 you may recall we mentioned there had been some significant “internal plumbing” work to enable not only the new GUI layout but the flexibility to significantly rebrand FreePBX. Well much of that work came into play allowing us to enable the new support for [i]Destination popOvers.[/i]

Here’s how it works: You go to create your IVR (or what ever) and you decide that option 1 is going to be the Sales Ring Group, [float=left][/float]so going into the IVR you choose [i]Ring Groups[/i] and since it does not exist yet you choose the last option [i]Add Ring Groups …[/i]. At that point, up comes a modal box and as can be seen in the screen shot here, there is the Ring Group module ready for you to define the new Ring Group. You configure up your Ring Group and then submit it, and when you return, you now have that Ring Group pre-selected for the destination you were just configuring. That’s all there is to it!

We are super excited about this feature which has been requested for years, and which lots of hard work over the last couple years has enabled [float=left][/float]
us to finally implement. We are very much looking forward to your feedback on this new capability! We will be back shortly to continue highlighting more of the new features in 2.11 and look forward to seeing you get out there and test it!

[b]Upcoming Trainings[/b]

We’ve had a lot of requests about upcoming FreePBX trainings. We posted the next [url=/open-telephony-training-seminar]Open Telephone Training Seminar[/url] to be held at the end of January in Sunny Naples Florida where we had an extremely successful training just last year! If you want to be prepared to get the intricate details of 2.11 and benefit from this extensive and well received training, sign up now while there is still Early Bird pricing available!